Vogel Pumps Connect Catalonian Communities to Clean Water

On the coast of Catalonia a significant water delivery project was commissioned by Aigües Ter Llobregat (ATLL), a public organisation with responsibility for supplying water to Barcelona and eight surrounding regions. A system was developed to deliver water from the Tordera desalination plant to an inland water treatment plant at Ter, branching off to towns north west of Barcelona en route.

XYLEM brands at the heart of the pumping system

The project required pump technology to deliver water a distance of 16km to a 10,000m3 tank in Fogars de la Selva, with arteries of pipework completing the water delivery more than 20km away to the treatment plant at Ter.

A joint venture of three companies (COMSA, COPISA and ABANTIA) was chosen to build an underground storage tank, a pumping and control building, and connections to the various pipelines. During the assembly and commissioning phases, XYLEM Water Solutions (former ITT Water and Waste Water) supplied the pumping systems, installation engineering and technical support to the joint venture company.

The solution involved installing a pumping station to manage the volume of 20Hm3/year, with the infrastructure to enable a simple expansion of pumps to achieve a future maximum capacity of 80Hm3/year.

An end-to-end pumping solution

Four Vogel PT series vertical wet pit pumps with 757mc/h capacity were used in the discharge system, while one Vogel TV 10-inch submersible borehole pump was used in a deep well to fill the discharge pipe. The pumps are manufactured at the Xylem Water Solutions Austria plant, which enabled Xylem to provide a carefully commissioned end-to-end solution from manufacture to installation.

The result is a highly efficient water delivery system which supplies several inland towns in this Catalonian region with clean drinking water delivered from source at the coast. With future capacity demands built in to the pumping station without the need for further civil engineering works, the system will ultimately be able to maximise delivery from 2,300mc/h to over 9,000mc/h to meet the demands of the region.